Nigeria: UN puts life expectancy at 55 years

Nigeria: UN puts life expectancy at 55 years

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has announced that the life expectancy in Nigeria is 55 years.

This is only higher than that of Sierra Leone (53), Chad and Central African Republic (54).

The UNFPA, in its new State of the World Population report, also put Nigeria’s average population growth at 2.6 per cent between 2010 and 2019 and estimated Nigeria’s population at about 201 million.

The report said that Nigeria’s population grew by about 5 million people from 2018 when the country’s population was 195.9 million.

The country has witnessed a population growth from 54.7 million in 1969 to 105.4 million in 1994 and 201.0 million in 2019.

According to UNFPA, the age distribution of 15-64 years is the highest population composition in the country with 54% of Nigerians falling between the age range.

Forty four per cent of Nigerians are within the age distribution 0-14 while 32% of the population is between 10 and 24 years and a paltry 3% are 65 and above.

The UNFPA report indicates a slight drop in the fertility rate from 2018’s 5.4 births per woman to 5.3 births per woman. It continues the trend of dropping fertility rate over the years from 6.3 in 1994 to 5.3 in 2019.

Overall, the World population grew to 7.7 billion in 2019, while the life expectancy rate is 72 years.

In early April, the National Population Commission (NPC) chairman, Alhaji Hassan Bashir told the 52nd Session of the United Nations Commission on Population and Development in New York the estimate stands at 52.2 years.

He said Nigerians “60 years and over currently represents less than five per cent of the entire population, while overall life expectancy is 52.2 years”.